The affective core of the self: A neuro-archetypical perspective on the foundations of human (and animal) subjectivity

Psychologists usually considered the "Self" as an object of experience appearing when the individual perceives its existence within the conscious field. In accordance with such a view, the self-representing capacity of the human mind has been related to corticolimbic learning processes taking place within individual development. On the other hand, Carl Gustav Jung considered the Self as the core of our personality, in its conscious and unconscious aspects, as well as in its actual and potential forms. According to Jung, the Self originates from an inborn dynamic structure integrating the essential drives of our "brain-mind," and leading both to instinctual behavioral actions and to archetypal psychological experiences. Interestingly, recent neuroethological studies indicate that our subjective identity rests on ancient neuropsychic processes that humans share with other animals as part of their inborn constitutional repertoire. Indeed, brain activity within subcortical midline structures (SCMSs) is intrinsically related to the emergence of prototypical affective states, that not only influence our behavior in a flexible way, but alter our conscious field, giving rise to specific feelings or moods, which constitute the first form of self-orientation in the world. Moreover, such affective dynamics play a central role in the organization of individual personality and in the evolution of all other (more sophisticated) psychological functions. Therefore, on the base of the convergence between contemporary cutting-edge scientific research and some psychological intuitions of Jung, we intend here to explore the first neuroevolutional layer of human mind, that we call the affective core of the Self

College Biology Students\u27 Conceptions Related to the Nature of Biological Knowledge: Implications for Conceptual Change.

Adequate understanding of the nature of science is a major goal of science education. Understanding of the evolutionary nature of biological knowledge is a means of reinforcing biology students\u27 understanding of the nature of science. It provides students with the philosophical basis, explanatory ideals, and subject matter-specific views of what counts as a scientifically-acceptable biological explanation. This study examined 121 college introductory biology and advanced zoology students for their conceptions related to the nature of biological knowledge. A 60-item Likert-scale questionnaire called the Nature of Biological Knowledge Scale and student interviews were used as complementary research instruments. Firstly, the study showed that 80--100% of college biology students have an adequate understanding of scientific methods, and that a similar percentage of students had learned the theory of evolution by natural selection in their biology courses. Secondly, the study showed that at least 60--80% of the students do not understand the importance of evolution in biological knowledge. Yet the study revealed that a statistically significant positive correlation exist among students\u27 understanding of natural selection, divergent, and convergent evolutionary models. Thirdly, the study showed that about 20--58% of college students hold prescientific conceptions which, in part, are responsible for students\u27 lack of understanding of the nature of biological knowledge. A statistically significant negative correlation was found among students\u27 prescientific conceptions about basis of biological knowledge and nature of change in biological processes, and their understanding of natural selection and evolutionary models. However, the study showed that students\u27 characteristics such as gender, age, major, or years in college have no statistically significant influence on students\u27 conceptions related to the nature of biological knowledge. Only students\u27 depth of biological knowledge or course was found to have a statistically significant influence on students\u27 conceptions related to scientific methods, the scope and limits of biological knowledge, the importance of evolution in biology, and students\u27 understanding of homologous and analogous structural features as products of divergent and convergent evolutionary processes. Findings of this study have implications for college biology teaching, student learning, and conceptual change among college biology students

Purpose and Design in Organisms and Artifacts: The Search for a Unified Philosophical Theory of Function

This work examines the concept of function in both biological organisms and designed artifacts. Function is routinely attributed within both kinds of systems, yet it is unclear whether it can mean the same thing within each, and indeed whether function attribution within natural systems is legitimate at all. Function is typically understood to have teleological content; yet in true teleological causation, the end is somehow the cause of its own means. In artifacts the consciously envisioned design of an artifact is taken to be the cause of its parts and their roles. Yet in naturalistic science there is no prior design of organisms, and efficient cause works only in the opposite direction. Three major approaches to function theory in contemporary analytic philosophy are examined in turn: etiological, systemic effects, and contributions. In addition a novel properties approach is proposed. It is seen that while the etiological approach promises to preserve an account of strongly teleological natural function, it is in fact unable to do so. The systemic effects approach, meanwhile, is found to not attribute function with adequate precision, nor to apply at all to contexts involving intention. The contributions account will be seen to require substantial modification to enable it to attribute function with sufficient discretion, including the necessity of distinguishing function performance from function possession, resulting in the novel Assigned Contribution theory. Finally, an entirely new approach to function informed by emergence theory is advanced. It is posited that functional parts are those whose properties not only serve the whole, but whose properties have been constrained by the whole of which they are a part. The four approaches to function will be seen to themselves turn on four different interpretations of teleology. Ultimately, the choice of function theory will be seen to rest on whether non-intentional teleology is a coherent metaphysical possibility. If it is, the properties approach offers important advantages. If it is not, the Assigned Contributions approach is superior. Yet even in this case, the properties approach shows enough promise as a full theory of function to merit further development

Elementary and secondary science teachers negotiation of controversial science content: The relationships among prior conception appropriation, thinking disposition, and learning about geologic time

A major component of the values people place on science and their attitude toward it is their openness to new ideas or overall open-mindedness. An individual’s values and attitudes become integrally connected to their prior knowledge and conceptions regarding science and science content. Sometimes the nature of a natural phenomenon and the scientific explanation for the phenomenon is controversial. A controversial scientific concept is one that evokes emotion and forces individuals to assess the values associated with this content and make assessments of their attitudes toward it. This is especially true during learning. The purpose of this study was to provide evidence on how prior knowledge and existing conceptions are related to open-mindedness when learning science content that is regarded as controversial. The participants for this study consisted of 7 elementary science teachers and 8 secondary science teachers. Data collected for the study included the determination of how individuals assessed and used their prior/existing conceptions when learning controversial science content based on individual interviews, an individual’s level of open-mindedness as measured by the Actively Open-minded Thinking scale (AOT) and determined through the interviews, and the assessment of the change in an individual’s level of knowledge regarding geologic time as measured by the Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI). The investigation consisted of multiple case studies analyzed within cases and across cases. The teachers’ use of their prior conceptions was determined through the coding of interviews based on the four appropriation modes of Integration, Differentiation, Exchange, and Bridging. Results from the interview data showed that 53% of the teachers differentiated their existing conceptions from new geologic time conceptions, while 47% integrated new conceptions with their prior conceptions. In addition, 40% of the teachers exhibited a bimodal appropriation of their existing conceptions. Bridging and exchange were the secondary appropriation modes observed among bimodal appropriators. No relationships were found between the teachers’ thinking disposition (open-mindedness) and their level of geologic time knowledge, nor where there any relationships found between the teachers’ prior conception appropriation and their geologic time knowledge or their appropriation and thinking disposition

How Many Minds Do We Need? Toward A One-System Account of Human Reasoning

To explain data from the reasoning and decision-making literature, dual-process theorists claim that human reasoning is divided: Type-1 processes are fast, automatic, associative, and evolutionarily old, while Type-2 processes are slow, effortful, rule-based, and evolutionarily new. Philosophers have used this distinction to their own philosophic ends in moral reasoning, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. I criticize dual-process theory on conceptual and empirical grounds and propose an alternative cognitive architecture for human reasoning. In chapter 1, I identify and clarify the key elements of dual-process and dual-system theory. Then, in chapter 2, I undercut an inference to the best explanation for dual-process theory by offering a one-system alternative. I argue that a single reasoning system can accomplish the explanatory work done by positing two distinct processes or systems. In chapter 3, I argue that a one-system account of human reasoning is empirically testable—it is incompatible with there being contradictory beliefs that are produced by simultaneously occurring reasoning processes. I further argue, contra Sloman (1996), that we do not have evidence for such beliefs. Next, in chapter 4, I argue that the properties used to distinguish Type-1 from Type-2 processes cross-cut each other (e.g. there are evolutionarily new processes that are effortless). The upshot is that even if human reasoning were divided, it would not parse neatly into two tidy categories: ‘Type-1’ and ‘Type-2.’ Finally, in chapter 5, I fill in the details of my own one-system alternative. I argue that there is one reasoning system that can operate in many modes: consciously or unconsciously, automatically or controlled, and inductively or deductively. In contrast to the dual-process theorists, these properties do not cluster. For each property pair (e.g. automatic/controlled), and for a single instance of a task, the reasoning system will operate in a definitive mode. The reasoning system is like a mixing board: it has several switches and slides, one for each property pair. As subjects work through problems, they can alter the switches and slides—they can, perhaps unconsciously, change the process they use to complete the problem

Diversity, productivity, and stability in perennial polycultures used for grain, forage, and biomass production

The objective of this dissertation was to determine to what extent plant species diversity affects biomass and seed productivity, weed invasion, and stability in perennial herbaceous polycultures across three years, two harvest management regimes, and two locations in central Iowa, USA. Average biomass productivity consistently increased in polycultures with increasing species richness across all environment-years. In most situations, polycultures were more productive than the average of monocultures, but not more productive than the best adapted species in monoculture for each environment. Polyculture overyielding was due to complementarity among species in the community rather than to selection effects of individual species at all richness levels across environments and was likely explained by legume-grass facilitation. Polycultures with high richness had lower variability in yield (i.e., greater stability) than the highest yielding monocultures. Seeds of two perennial grain species were harvested; intermediate wheatgrass produced up to 65.8 +/- 6.5 g m-2 of seed and Illinois bundleflower up to 55.0 +/- 8.1 g m-2. Plant breeding and better agronomic management are needed to increase these yields in the near future to be practical for production situations. The mixture comprising both perennial grains produced as much seed as the best yielding monoculture each year. Polycultures of Illinois bundleflower with C4 grasses and polycultures of intermediate wheatgrass with legumes produced as much seed as the monocultures. Weed biomass decreased exponentially with seeded species richness in all environments. Most polycultures exerted greater weed suppression than perennial grain monocultures but also they had reduced seed yields. Breeding and management of crop mixtures to optimize the trade-off between seed yield and weed suppression is a central challenge for the development of perennial polyculture systems. The dialogue between Ecology and Agriculture provides a basis for designing sustainable production systems

From Microsound to Vaporwave:internet-mediated musics, online methods, and genre

How is the internet transforming musical practices? In this article, through a study of five prominent popular and crossover music genres spanning the period from the late 1990s to the present, we examine how the internet has augmented the creative, aesthetic, communicative and social dimensions of music. Analysing the internet-based practices associated with these genres poses methodological and theoretical challenges. It requires new research tools attentive to the online practices involved in their creation and reception. To this end we adapt the Issue Crawler software, an established digital method that analyses networks of hyperlinking on the world-wide web. In addition, it requires a theoretical framework that can respond to music’s profuse mediations in the digital environment. We propose that a version of genre theory offers such a framework. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of our analysis for theorising music and place and for historical periodization after the internet

Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science

The last two decades have seen two significant trends emerging within the philosophy of science: the rapid development and focus on the philosophy of the specialised sciences, and a resurgence of Aristotelian metaphysics, much of which is concerned with the possibility of emergence, as well as the ontological status and indispensability of dispositions and powers in science. Despite these recent trends, few Aristotelian metaphysicians have engaged directly with the philosophy of the specialised sciences. Additionally, the relationship between fundamental Aristotelian concepts—such as "hylomorphism", "substance", and "faculties"—and contemporary science has yet to receive a critical and systematic treatment. Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science aims to fill this gap in the literature by bringing together essays on the relationship between Aristotelianism and science that cut across interdisciplinary boundaries. The chapters in this volume are divided into two main sections covering the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of the life sciences. Featuring original contributions from distinguished and early-career scholars, this book will be of interest to specialists in analytical metaphysics and the philosophy of science